MBP Grey screen at startup

[zacster]

My daughter's MBP (2010 I think) has gone grey screen on bootup. I had installed an SSD from OWC in it over the summer and I was wondering if that is likely the culprit. I haven't been able to look at it yet as she is away in school, but coming home today.

And if the SSD is the culprit what is the likelihood of being able to recover files from it? She of course has no recent backup but has about a thousand photos on it from her freshman year.

I still have the original hard drive so I'll give that a try and see if it boots, in which case I'd assume the SSD is fried. It is under 6 months old, so I'm assuming I have warranty coverage on replacement.

 

[pigoo3]

And if the SSD is the culprit what is the likelihood of being able to recover files from it? She of course has no recent backup but has about a thousand photos on it from her freshman year.

Try booting the computer from an bootable external drive…and see if the internal SSD shows up. Maybe there's just something wrong with the OS on the SSD.

You could also try repairing the SSD with the Apple's Disk Utility program…but to do this…you need to boot the computer from a 2nd drive…or…if the computer has OS 10.7 or above installed…boot into the "Recovery Partition"…by booting the computer with the two key combo…command + r.

Finally. If nothing above works…you could try a better file recovery program like Disk Warrior to recover the files. Disk Warrior costs about $100. Which I'm guessing may be worth it considering all those photos.

HTH,

- Nick

 

[zacster]

I have the computer now, and it really does go grey screen. I put the original hard drive back in and it booted right up, so that means it was the SSD.

So now I have the SSD in a USB case plugged into my own MBA, but it doesn't recognize it. I've tried EaseUS recovery, but it also doesn't recognize it.

Is there some freeware to try? I guess the issue is until it can at least be recognized as a drive, even as a corrupted one, I won't be able to do much with it.

 

[chscag]

Most Data Recovery software is expensive but they do have a trial version that you can download to test with. However, if the SSD can not be "seen" it's likely toast and no data recovery software is going to work. A data recovery service might be able to extract data from it, but you don't even want to know how much that will cost.

As for the warranty, OWC warrants their SSD drives for at least one year and maybe more so you shouldn't have a problem getting it replaced.

 

[zacster]

I chatted with the rep from OWC and while she had nothing to recommend for recovery, she did the return authorization without a problem.

This drive is really toast, I can't get anything to recognize it. I can feel that it gets warm when plugged in, but barely, and it also make a high pitched noise when first plugged in which goes away after about 10 seconds. It's doing something, but nothing useful. All of the other devices I have work as expected as I swap things around, so it is definitely the drive.